From an oration purporting to have been delivered by Samuel Adams at the State House in Philadelphia, Aug. 1, 1776. (Philadelphia, printed; London, reprinted for E. Johnson, No. 4 Ludgate Hill, 1776.) W. V. Wells, in his Life of Adams, says: “No such American edition has ever been seen, but at least four copies are known of the London issue. A German translation of this oration was printed in 1778, perhaps at Berne; the place of publication is not given.”
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers.—Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. book iv. chap. vii. part 3. (1775.)
And what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.—Tucker (Dean of Gloucester): Tract. (1766.)
Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers.—Bertrand Barère. (June 11, 1794.)
This new page opened in the book of our public expenditures, and this new departure taken, which leads into the bottomless gulf of civil pensions and family gratuities.—T. H. Benton: Speech in the U. S. Senate against a grant to President Harrison’s widow, April, 1841.
Orthodoxy is my doxy; Heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.
“I have heard frequent use,” said the late Lord Sandwich, in a debate on the Test Laws, “of the words ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heterodoxy;’ but I confess myself at a loss to know precisely what they mean.” “Orthodoxy, my Lord,” said Bishop Walburton, in a whisper,—“orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.”—Priestley: Memoirs, vol. i. p. 572.
The earliest instance of this expression is found in William Bullein’s “Dialogue,” p. 28 (1573). It is used by Shakespeare, Middleton, Milton, Pope, Fielding, Crabbe, and others.
